


Torch of Hope

by Zinnith



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Bringing some Scandinavian Nerdery into Atlantis Fandom, Gen, Music, Very Swedish traditions, Women Being Awesome, choir singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21783358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zinnith/pseuds/Zinnith
Summary: "So you want to celebrate that some poor Italian girl was tortured and executed 1700 years ago? What'swrongwith you people?"(Atlatis gets a choir. Atlantis doesn't realise this until it's already happened.)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 24





	Torch of Hope

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this silly little story years ago. About time it got finished. We know there were Swedish expedition members on Atlantis and I figure at least one of them would have wanted to share a little tradition of ours. It turned out to be about female friendship, and music, and above all, hope.
> 
> For refences of a Swedish Lucia procession, have some exemples:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mBFu1I904Q&t=100s  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9w-CRkU0nk

"So you want to celebrate that some poor Italian girl was tortured and executed 1700 years ago? What's  _ wrong  _ with you people?"

Karin hadn't really expected Dr McKay to understand but he is her boss and she felt that she ought to ask him before she takes it to Dr Weir. "It's n-not about that," she tries to explain. “Not nowadays. It's about... hope I s-suppose. About getting t-through the dark times."

Dr McKay glances at the pictures on Karin's laptop screen. "There won't be any torn-out eyeballs carried around on plates, will there?" he asks, wincing. "There's more than enough nightmare fuel in this galaxy already, no need to introduce even more."

“N-no eyeballs,” Karin promises. “There might be gingerbread if I can find any s-spices that t-taste even remotely like what we’ve got on Earth.”

“Gingerbread!” Dr McKay beams. “Count me in! As long as you don’t burn the place down.”

So, that’s a win. Now, she only has to sell Dr Weir on a Scandinavian tradition, with both Catholic and pagan roots, that probably won’t mean anything to anyone but Karin herself. 

***

It’s probably stupid. Karin doesn’t quite know how to explain it to anyone who’s not from the cold, dark North. She was the youngest in a family with four daughters and a penchant for choir singing. The months leading up to Christmas were always full of music. She remembers how her older sisters used to get up early on December 13:th, dress up in long white nightgowns, tinsel and burning candles, and wake  _ Mamma  _ and  _ Pappa  _ up with singing. She remembers how she was waiting and longing for the day when Anna and Elin and Maria finally deemed her old enough to join them.

Karin tries to hold onto those memories when she gets her appointment with Dr Weir. She tries to paint a picture of growing up so close to the Arctic circle that the sun barely rises during the winter months. How the darkness is a living, oppressing thing, heavy on your shoulders for so long. How people come together that one day of the year, gathering in schools and churches and shopping malls, to see and listen to young girls trying to combat all that darkness with a little light.

“I j-just figured, we could use a little l-light?” Karin finishes, out of breath after talking for so long. 

Dr Weir seems to be considering her argument for a moment, but then she nods. “You know what? I think so too. Please go ahead, Dr Svensson.”

* * *

Karin spends a few days recruiting. Corporal Ericson and Dr Stokes are both Minnesotans of Scandinavian ancestry and they're immediately onto the idea. Staff Sergeant Garcia is doubtful at first, but she has a decent singing voice and isn’t averse to making a fool out of herself in order to boost morale. Nurse Estevez listens in when Karin tries to convince Sergeant Tosetti and volunteers to join. Dr Koivisto comes knocking on Karin’s door late one evening with a written outline of how she can be a valuable asset to this project. Pirjo Koivisto is past fifty, nowhere close in age to the girls who usually make up the Lucia procession, but Karin isn’t about to turn away an enthusiastic volunteer. When they start talking, it turns out Pirjo was actually the Lucia of her hometown in Finland when she was seventeen, she can read sheet music, and she’s got experience conducting a choir. 

Karin stands outside the gym where Teyla is sparring with the Major for fifteen minutes before she manages to work up the nerve to go in and explain her plans, still with the embarrassing stutter she’s been trying to get rid of all her life.

Teyla listens patiently, and when Karin is done, she smiles. “It sounds like a delightful tradition,” she says. “It would be an honour to participate.”

In the end, Karin manages to lure ten women into her net. They meet up at a table in the mess hall for dinner, and Karin gets to inspect her troops, so to speak. They’re a wild mix of nationalities and professions. About half of them are from the science division, the rest from the military contingent. None of them are completely tone deaf, and at least Karin, Pirjo, and Regina Garcia know how to harmonize. It’s probably not going to be a disaster.

There is, of course, the matter of who is going to be granted the honour of being Lucia herself. 

"I think you should do it," Helen Ericson tells Karin. "It was your idea."

Karin just smiles and shakes her head. “It s-should be T-teyla,” she tells them. 

There's a certain way this is supposed to be done, even if it’s stupid and outdated. The prettiest girl gets to wear the crown. There were times when she was younger, that Karin dreamt about being the one chosen to walk in front of the procession, the one all eyes would be drawn to. She’s grown out of those wishes since then. Karin used to be the one who got the solo, the one who was chosen on merit instead of beauty. Now that she’s grown up, she can appreciate that.

(It turns out Teyla can sing as well, because of course she can, but it still feels right. Lucia is supposed to be a beacon of hope, and if there’s anyone who knows how to instill hope in people, it’s Teyla Emmagan.)

  
  


* * *

Finding the right supplies is a challenge, but it so happens that this is a group of women who have never backed down from a challenge in their lives.

There’s no tinsel to be had, but Regina Garcia, who goes off-world regularly, takes the opportunity to gather some plants that almost look like lingonberry shrubs. They make green wreaths instead, decorated with red ribbons that Karin traded for three powerbars at the market on PXT-547, back when all this was just a vague idea. Teyla gets candles from Athos. 

Pirjo is in charge of the musical arrangements and, since she’s one of the few scientists in Atlantis who isn’t afraid of Dr McKay, she convinces him to power up the Ancient music room for two hours every night so they’ll have somewhere to practice. Valentina Tosetti commandeers the metal workshop for an afternoon, turning some scrap metal into a crown for the Lucia.

The real problem is finding eleven white gowns. There are no sheets to be spared and they can’t justify trading hard-won resources for fabric or gowns off-world. 

Then Emily Stokes suggests they borrow the lab coats from the chemistry lab. It’s not even close to right, but it still feels appropriate somehow. The Atlantis expedition has always been about making do with what they have, about thinking outside the box. If that means a Lucia and attendants dressed in knee-long lab coats with the Pegasus expedition seal on the breast pocket, then so be it.

* * *

This is Atlantis, so nothing ever goes according to plan. Regina Garcia’s team gets held hostage on PX4-546 and returns with Regina spitting mad, Dr Hosseini from the engineering department with his right forearm in a splint, and the rest of the marines on Regina’s team downtrodden and embarrassed. Karin likes to listen to the military gossip and for the moment it’s all about how when (if) they regain contact with Earth and get some reinforcements in, whoever gets put in charge of Regina’s offworld team is going to have their work cut out for them. 

Emily Stokes trips and twists her ankle while trying to figure out a way into the Ancient biology labs, but still shows up to rehearsal on crutches, promising to be fit for fight when the day the Atlantis expedition has collectively dubbed December 13 rolls along. Pirjo gets an ordinary old-fashioned cold, and when she shows up in medical with a sore throat and a non-existent voice, Carla Estevez makes sure she gets all the good drugs, and some more for good measure.

Valentina Tosetti’s team go on a mission and isn’t quite as lucky as Regina’s team. They lose private Hayes and when Valentina comes back, she locks the door to her quarters and won’t let anyone inside. 

Tosetti’s team leader isn’t in much better shape himself, so he asks Garcia for help, and a somewhat wild-eyed Regina Garcia asks Karin to come and join her. It takes the better part of the afternoon to get her to open the door, but at last, Tina lies curled up in Regina’s lap, crying her eyes out, while Karin awkwardly strokes her back.

Valentina isn’t at all prepared for rehearsal that evening, but she shows up anyway, with her eyes cried red and her voice shaky. No one says anything during rehearsal, but Pirjo takes some extra time to make sure Tina’s got her part down right. 

* * *

It’s the morning of the 13:th. There hasn’t been an official announcement, but gossip spreads through Atlantis like spores and everyone in the expedition knows that this particular morning, the mess hall is the place to be.

Valentina bribed Dr Zelenka to turn the lights down low during breakfast. Regina probably threatened the marines with bodily harm if they didn’t show up, regardless of what shift they might’ve had before. As it is, the mess hall is crowded to the point of bursting. Only a few people know what to expect, but everyone is there nevertheless. 

Santa Lucia and her attendants have all gathered in the kitchen, and the people on kitchen duty are working around them without a word of complaint. There’s even gingerbread, because Corporal Lindberg was sent a package of Christmas spices from his grandmother in Strängnäs before the Atlantis expedition departed, and he brought them as his personal item. 

Karin lights the candles on top of Teyla’s head, lights her own candle from one on the Lucia’s crown, and then passes the flame on to Pirjo, who passes it on to Regina, who passes it down the line. 

Karin opens the door out into the mess hall just a crack. It’s crowded, the air is full of anticipation and curiosity. It’s perfect.

She turns to her troops and smiles. “All right ladies. T-time to go.” 

Corporal Lindberg holds the door open for them as they march (half of them are marines and wouldn’t know a graceful stride if it jumped up and bit them) out into the mess hall and up to the front.

It’s not perfect. They haven’t had enough time to practice. Helen can’t quite manage the high notes. Carla forgets the lyrics to Silent Night and spends half the song humming along with a panicked expression. Karin doesn’t get a solo this time, but Pirjo arranged a version of  _ Santa Lucia _ in the original Napolitan for a ladies quartet, and Karin, Pirjo, Regina and Valentina have spent more time than Karin wants to think about trying to do it justice.

Everyone in the audience looks on with rapt attention. Out of the corner of her eye, Karin spots Dr Zelenka wiping some moisture from his eyes. She shifts her gaze to Dr McKay and finds him silently moving his fingers in pace with the music, as if he’s the one conducting the choir.

Afterwards, they huddle together in the hallway off the mess hall, all high on adrenaline and excitement and giggling like teenagers. 

"I thought I was going to _faint_."

"We got the second verse wrong, do you think anyone noticed?"

"I believe there is wax in my hair," Teyla says, bending her knees so Emily can reach to blow the candles out.

"If Lee took any pictures, I'm going to kill him," Regina mutters, shrugging out of the labcoat just in time to hide her wide grin.

Karin doesn't say anything. She just smiles and thinks about the snow and the darkness in Uppsala. Icy streets and advent lights in every window and the scent of saffron and cloves and candle wax in the air. There's a little burn mark on her hand where the candle dripped and the wreath itches against her forehead. For a short moment, she feels like she’s fifteen again, surrounded by friends and family. 

She’s thirty-four now, but it’s quite possible she’s still surrounded by friends and family. 

* * *

Dr McKay storms through Karin’s lab two days later, on his way to or from one crisis or another. Usually, he doesn’t look twice at her, unless she’s screwed something up, but today, he actually stops short in his tracks in front of her desk.

“That… the other day… It was not a complete waste of time, I suppose.”

Karin looks up at him, and for once, she doesn’t stutter at all when she answers, “Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say.”

Dr McKay doesn’t blush, because that’s not the kind of thing he does, but he does seem a little bit flustered. “Well, my compliments to the conductor. 

“So if Pirjo asked to k-keep the m-music room open for choir practice, would t-that be all right?” Karin asks. People have been approaching them lately. People who have been part of choirs on Earth, people who just like to sing. Yesterday, Lieutenant Ford cornered Karin in a corridor and confessed that he’d been in a boys’ choir when he was a kid and then proceeded to attempt to sing several musical numbers to demonstrate a pretty decent tenor as proof that he ought to be allowed to join in. 

Dr McKay stands up straight, tilts his head in the way he does when he’s already made up his mind but isn’t sure how to convey it, because it would hurt his pride. “Ask Dr Koivisto to submit a proposal,” he says, but then his posture relaxes a little. “And if you should happen to find yourself in the need of pianist, I might be convinced to… um. Donate some time to the cause.” 

Most people would consider that as the birth of the Atlantis Expedition Mixed Choir. Karin herself knows better.

* Fin *


End file.
